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General Forum: Current 'Affairs' | | idee lOkam ! | |
| Hum do, hamare do - only with a boy
This problem is very sever in Punjab and Haryana where boy is a must at any cost and peopel go to anylengths to have boys only.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:52:42 PM IST
This lingua thing is a bigger problem involving pride and politics of the natives.
Really the article is about mobility of young people from one region to other due to career/education compulsions and intermarrying spouse of some other mothertonguee and consequent fun and dilemma for kids.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:47:53 PM IST
Yep I know,
What I meant to say was that when the mother tongue is well managed within the states, it would not be difficult to pass it on to the kids at an early age and they would understand multiple languages ..
But when the state is not keen, the parents wouldnt care about teaching the motnehr tongue of MOM as well as DAD to the kids
Posted by: Malakpet Rowdy At: 11, Dec 2006 2:39:23 PM IST
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Well,on the otherhand I felt the article is "on mother tongue" is more about how modern day career/marriage compulsions are forcing young generations into this dilemma!
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:31:04 PM IST
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Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:08:53 PM IST
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I totally agree ... The Govt of Karnatka is is taking steps to Protect Kannada ...
Tamilnadu is wantedly killing Telugu inspite of 46% of its population being Telugu-speaking guys
And Andhra ... Alas! Do I need to say anything?
The question I often ask myslef - Am I also a part of the gang thats killing my mother tongue?
... Sometimes I feel the answer is YES ... scary!
Posted by: Malakpet Rowdy At: 11, Dec 2006 2:24:43 PM IST
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that is from this link;
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/The_killing_of_mother_tongue/articleshow/msid-756116,curpg-2.cms
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:13:45 PM IST
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The killing of mother tongue
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This is a funny yet real-life piece of article
MUMBAI: Prajodh Rajan thinks his new Malayalee maid has promise. He had searched for a good three months before zeroing in on her. He had to pay a premium but she agreed to his condition. She would speak to his one-year-old son Aarav only in Malayalam. Aarav can understand English and Gujarati, the language of his mother. But he doesn't understand a word of Rajan's mother tongue, Malayalam.
Rajan and his wife are part of a rising urban problem called Mummy-Daddy. They have no choice but to speak in English, or sometimes Hindi, at home. They recognise the fate of English as the preferred language of their children. But there is an itch within them to give their wards a true mother tongue. Some send their kids to schools which have regional languages in the curriculum. Others have resolved to speak in their blood language at home, even if it's terrible.
But many working parents who are aware of the slow death of the mother tongue, do not seem to really care any more. They don't want to burden their kids with an additional language. Among lower middle-class families where English is an aspiration, there is even an overt pride when children speak in that language instead of the mother tongue."I saw a Maharashtrian mother at a temple scolding her kid when she spoke in Marathi. 'Say thank you, god,' she insisted," recalls Arundhati Chavan, president, PTA united forum.
In the upper echelons however, there is some kind of introspection over the demise of the mother tongue. Social functions today are punctuated with embarrassing moments. When relatives crack jokes in native languages, children are smiling vacantly or pretending to understand them. For kids today, relatives are not just large, loud people who stay over long but also characters who speak in an unfamiliar language.
The situation, more acute now, has been in the making for years. Never did anyone think that rampant love and resultant marriages would have an effect on Indian languages. Couples who let English flourish at home at the expense of other tongues are suffering the consequences. When Chandrika Vora, a Tamilian visits her husband's place in Kutch, she has to play an interpreter who stands between her kids and the in-laws.
Every morning when Ganesh Kumar sits for breakfast with his family, he faces a situation. Each member of his family speaks a different language. He is a Tamilian. His wife is a Maharashtrian, his convent school bred daughter prefers English and 18-year-old son, who is currently studying in Bangalore, talks in a language yet to be named. It is a mixture of English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and the newly acquired Kannada. When he politely says beda ('no' in Kannada) to another helping of idlis, his father obliges by dunking two more idlis on his plate. (Venum is 'yes' in Tamil). Similarly, when Kumar asks for thutham (water), his kids uneasily point out to each item on the table because they don't know what he is talking about.
Kumar says that his family life now has the language of Munnabhai MBBS. The message is somehow conveyed but without any grammar or structure. There is no single native language of communication. So, like many parents of inter-language marriages, who are called 'Mummy' and 'Daddy', Kumar too has enlisted himself in the struggle to revive the all important mother tongue. His daughter and wife now attend tuitions for written Tamil every weekend. "They can identify bus routes in Chennai," says Kumar, who is beginning to get a glass of water when he says, 'thutham'.
Increasingly, young parents are doing things to ensure that they do not face the situation of the Kumars. There are online tutorials that they subscribe to. Like the one started by Thomas Samuel for children who want to, or are forced to, learn Malayalam. The endearment of the internet medium is bringing hordes of children to his site. Recently, a curious eight-year-old logged on and asked why his father's friends called him kudavayaran (pot-bellied).
Pankaj Shah, the head of Kutch Yuvak Sangh, says many concerned parents ask him to involve their children in the annual Kutchi dramas organised by him. Here, parents are suddenly militantly protective of Kutchi. "Once, when we tried to use some English sentences like 'well, we have to look into it,' in the dialogues for impact, parents objected saying the aim was to teach them Kutchi. So, we had to alter the sentences," says Shah. His nephew, Puneet whose mother is a Tamilian, worked backstage in one of these plays when he was eight and now speaks fluent Kutchi. But given a choice, he would rather learn to read and write French.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:08:53 PM IST
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:43:09 PM IST
This doesnt apply to me .. hehe .. I have just one kid and its a Girl
Posted by: Malakpet Rowdy At: 11, Dec 2006 2:42:49 PM IST
I really appreciate if people use this thread to discuss burning issues
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:33:55 PM IST
Hum do, hamare do - only with a boy
AHMEDABAD: Gujaratis are increasingly embracing the 'Hum do, hamare do' slogan of family planning. But small family is a happy family only if at least one of the children is a son.
Statistics of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2005-2006 in Gujarat reveal that 94.8 per cent women are happy with the 'Hum do hamare do' concept only if both their children are sons, 90.1 per cent don't want more children if at least one of their two children is a male child. But 51.2 per cent families with two daughters felt their families were not yet complete and wanted to have more children!
These findings have raised the hackles of sociologists who feel that the strong preference for a male child in Gujarat coupled with a tendency to have smaller families may sound the death knell for the girl child that is already gasping for breath in the state.
"This is a clear indication that there is a strong preference for the male child in the Gujarati society", said Irfan Khan, research director of Taleem Research Foundation.
Gujarat has an alarmingly skewed sex ratio of 878 girls per 1,000 boys in the state which is largely attributed to people wanting boys over girls. It has also been recently revealed in the NFHS survey that the family size in Gujarat is shrinking what with the Total Fertility Rate declining from 2.4 in 1999 to 2.1 in year 2005-06.
"This is a dangerous trend. Girls would become all the more scarce if people want smaller families and still hanker after sons. Awareness campaigns only will not do. The government and the society will have to do more and offer incentives for parents with two girls to inspire people to give birth to daughters", says sociologist Gaurang Jani.
If you thought there was difference in thinking of the people urban and rural areas, you would be mistaken. When it comes to one's individual family, the urban and rural people think alike--they all want a son.
"In the rural areas, 50 per cent women with two daughters want to have more children while it is 47 per cent in urban areas. If one thought that the modern, educated women in the urban areas would think differently, it is not the case", Khan said.
"We have experienced that 98 per cent of families that have only daughters do not want to adopt permanent family planning procedures for want of a son. Some would not stop even after three, four, five girls", says Suresh Maratha, branch manager of Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), Ahmedabad.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:20:56 PM IST
Man dies of shock as wife bears baby girl
BALASORE : A man in Orissa was so shocked after he heard that his wife had given birth to a girl child that he fell to the ground, hit his head against a wall and succumbed to his injuries.
Akshaya Kumar Sahu, 30, a resident of Gambharia village in the state's Bhadrak district, was joyous when his pregnant wife was taken to a nearby hospital with labour pains on Sunday.
However, she gave birth to a girl child in the ambulance itself while on the way to the hospital, Akshaya's father Balaram Sahu said.
Akshaya, who was a father of a two-year-old daughter, was expecting a male child this time round, said Balaram.
The news of his newborn baby was given to Akshaya by his aunt and he was so shocked that he fell to the ground and hit his head against a wall.
He started bleeding from his ear and mouth and was taken to the Sri Ramchandra Bhanja (SCB) Medical Hospital by relatives where he succumbed to his injuries on Monday, his father said.
Akshaya, a graduate in law, was working as a contract labourer in the Nilachal Steel company in Jajpur district. He was married in 2003.
He had no other physical complications such as blood pressure or stress. Doctors who treated him said he died of head injuries and shock.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:19:56 PM IST
Sex ratio keeps getting worse
NEW DELHI: It's long been a matter of shame for 'modern' India — and just keeps getting worse. Despite booming growth rates and rising literacy, more and more girl children are being killed at or before birth. Fresh statistics show 80% of India’s districts have recorded a decline in sex ratios since 1991.
The worst offender is Punjab, where the ratio of girls has dropped from 875 in 1991 to 798 girls for every 1000 boys in 2001. This chilling data is part of the latest report on "State of the World's Children", due to be released by Unicef shortly.
Punjab is closely followed by Haryana, which has recorded a 60-point drop from 879 girls in 1991 to 819 in 2001, followed by Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. A surprise entry to this hall of shame is Arunachal Pradesh, where the child sex ratio has dropped from 982 girls to 964. Delhi, with all its cosmopolitan pretensions, has a 47-point drop from 915 girls to 868.
The only silver lining is Kerala where the sex ratio has increased marginally from 958 girls in 1991 to 960, Pondicherry and Lakshwadeep.
The report is a sweeping indictment of efforts of governments to enforce laws against foeticide as well as killing of newborn girls. Campaigns to encourage people to consider girl children as socially and even economically desirable do not seem to have made much headway either.
The all-India average is 927 girls for 1000 boys which puts the country right at the bottom of the chart internationally. In fact, it fares even worse than countries like strife-wracked Nigeria (965) and neighbour Pakistan (958). According to the report, only China with 832 girls per 1,000 boys ranks below India on this dubious front.
According to sources, the dismal state of affairs is largely due to misuse of pre-natal diagnostic techniques and the consequent increase in cases of female foeticide.
"In prosperous states like Punjab and Haryana, people have both access and money to misuse technology," a source said.
Incidentally, the report notes that incidence of female foeticide seem more prevalent in urban areas compared to rural regions.
In Punjab, the number of girls in rural areas is 799 per 1000 boys, compared with an even grimmer 796 in urban zones.
Activists are alarmed. Ranjana Kumari of Centre for Social Research said, "The drop in child sex ratio is both alarming and difficult to understand. The action taken by the government is very dismal. It is not just the concern of the health ministry but of every department in the government. Tackling this requires a sensitisation campaign along the lines of HIV/AIDS."
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 11, Dec 2006 2:17:24 PM IST
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